What is Software Piracy?

What is software Piracy?

Software piracy can be defined as “copying and using commercial software purchased by someone else”. Software piracy is illegal. Each pirated piece of software takes away from company profits, reducing funds for further software development initiatives.

Theft of software through the illegal copying of genuine programs or the counterfeiting and distribution of products intended to pass for the original is termed as termed as software piracy.

Reasons behind the software piracy:

Let understand this by an example: Suppose any game company had got its games pirated before release the following would be the reasons behind that piracy:

Ø Money —

A lot of people cited the cost of games as a major reason for pirating. Many were kids with no cash and lots of time to play games, but many were not.

Ø Quality—

Although there were many and varied complaints about tech support, game stability, bugs and system requirements, it was interesting to hear so many complaints about actual game design and gameplay. Many people agreed that though today’s games look fantastic, they “got boring too quickly, were too derivative, and had gameplay issues.”

Another quality complaint: Demos are too short and people feel that they’re often not representative of the final product.

Ø Ease—

Lots of people claimed to pirate because it was easier than going to shops. Many of them said they pirate everything that’s not on [Valve's] Steam. Steam got pretty universal thumbs up from everyone.

Ø Because I Can —

Some people admitted that stealing games online was easy to do because no one got caught.